Arizona Territory

“ I want the reader to understand that even though the process of evolution has taken a life-time, I cannot cease wondering at the marvelous development of the Territory and, later, State of Arizona. When I glance back over the vista of years and see the old, and then open my eyes to survey the new, it is almost as though a Verne or a Haggard sketch had come to life. ”

“ Nevada, Wyoming, and Alaska are all behind Arizona in population. There are only 1.1 inhabitants per square mile. The foreign born constitute less than 20 per cent. of the population, and are mostly Mexican. The excess of males—a phenomenon common to the Western States—is marked, being more than 20,000; this is attributed to the mining and frontier character of the Territory. For the populations of Arizona by counties, see back of map. ”

“ Compared with States and other Territories, it ranks sixth in area and forty-ninth in population.
Topography. The extension northwestward of the Mexican Cordilleras, which rises beyond the Colorado River in the Sierra Nevada, divides Arizona diagonally into two regions—a southwestern part of low elevation, and a northeastern part consisting of an elevated plateau. The whole Territory, however, is moimtainous in the form of short, isolated ranges having a general northwest-southeast trend, which are abrupt, sterile, and gashed by deep canons and dry water-courses. ”

“ Chap. 6.—An Act To enable the city of Phoenix, the town of Tempe, and the town of Mesa, all in Maricopa County, Arizona Territory, severally to issue the bonds of said municipalities for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a freighting and wagon road from any convenient point in the Salt River Valley to the Salt River reservoir dam site in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Arizona. ”

“ For the purposes of this study the question of education prior to the time of the organization of Arizona into a separate Territory need not be further considered. This organization was effected under an act passed February 24, 1863, “to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Arizona, and for other purposes.” But that was a time of Civil War in the East and of Indian war in the West ”

“ Companies have been formed, and large parties are settling in Arizona, near the Mexican line, with the ulterior object of overrunning Sonora, and revenging the tragedy in which was shed some of the best blood of the State. ”

“ To complete the physical description of Arizona territory something must be said of the pine-clad mountain range to the south of us. The bulk of this area constituted the Apache Indian Reservation. It was reserved for these Indians as a hunting-ground as well as a home. No one else was allowed to settle within its boundaries, or graze their sheep or cattle there. ”

“ Should the exploration of the Upper Colorado by Lieutenant Ives, United States Army, now in progress, prove successful, Colorado city will become still more important, as the surplus products of the rich valleys of New Mexico, Utah, and California to the north, will all find a market down the Colorado. Property in this new city is held at high rates, and by the last San Francisco News Letter is quoted at an advance. The population of Arizona Territory has much increased within a few months by emigration from California. ”

“ The population of the new Territory of Arizona is at present not far from eight thousand, and is rapidly increasing. The Mesilla Valley and the Rio Grande are probably the most thickly populated, containing about five thousand people. A majority of the Mesilla inhabitants are Mexicans, but they will be controlled by the American residents, whose number and influence is constantly on the increase. The Santa Cruz Valley, in which are situated the towns of Tueson, Tubac, Tumacacari, and the mining settlement of Sopori and others, is, next to Mesilla, the most thickly settled. ”

“ New Mexico affords us no protection. We have not even received an order for election. Every one goes armed to the teeth, and a difficulty is sure to prove fatal. In this state of affairs it is impossible to hold a convention."
Tueson, Oct. 1, 1857.
We are pleased to hear that the prospect for Arizona is so bright. If you should succeed in getting a separate organization for Arizona, you will lay the people under many obligations to you. You have no doubt received many petitions for Congress, and also your certificate of election as delegate for this purchase. ”

“ That when California was admitted into the Union as a State, in eighteen hundred and fifty, it was admitted with the same boundary on the south, as declared in her constitution, that was specified in the said treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and run by the commissioners aforesaid, the River Colorado separating the small tract of land before specified from the remainder of the State. ”

“ Wonders of almost any sort may be expected, and you almost look for phantoms not of earth among the shifting mirages.
A considerable part of Arizona, as well, is of the same character, but it is estimated by competent authority that with irrigation thirty-seven per cent, of that Territory can be redeemed for agriculture, and sixty per cent, as pasturage. It will be called to mind that even the apparently hopeless Colorado Desert, which is below the level of the sea, is also below the level of the Colorado River, from which water might perhaps be spread over it with comparative ease. ”

“ The agricultural resources of Arizona, are sufficient to sustain a large mining population, and afford abundant supplies for the great immigration which will follow the development of its mineral resources. The whole valley of the Gila, more than four hundred miles in length, can be made with proper exertion to yield plentiful crops. The Pimos Indians, who live in villages on the Gila, one hundred and seventy miles from its mouth, raise large crops of cotton, wheat, and corn, and have for years supplied the thousands of emigrants who traverse the Territory en route to California. ”

“ A person who has only seen settled States in Europe, or the Eastern States of the North American Continent, cannot form any notion of a territory 78 which has become a centre of attraction to all the wild adventurers and daring spirits which society, in the process of formation, throws out as a sort of advanced guard. In Arizona, in 1870, according to the American Almanac, out of a total population of 9658, 2729 could not write and 2690 could not read. Of the total population, 2491 were foreign born, and 2753 were natives, the rest being coloured or under ten years of age. ”

“ This Territory's so poor they come cheap. Seventy-five cents a head for all the votes I wanted in Bisbee, Nogales, and Yuma; and up here the Bishop was my good friend. Holding office booms my business some, and that's why I took it, of course. But I've had low standards to fight."
The Territorial Delegate now talked freely of Arizona's frontier life. "It's all dead," he said, forgetting in his fluency what he had told me about Seven-Mile Mesquite and last October. "We have a community as high toned as any in the land. ”

“ Young on my return home, who received it as a fact, and remarked: "Why should there be good lands left in the heart of Mexico, when they had given out grants clear into California, New Mexico, Arizona and even into this territory?"
We remained some three weeks in the city. A great many persons called upon us, some to enquire about our religion with sincere interest, others for mere curiosity. Among our visitors were some notorious robbers from Arizona who visited us often. ”

“ That the highways of the Territory are stained with the blood of citizens of the United States, shed by Indians and by public marauders, who commit their crimes in open day, knowing there is no law to restrain and no magistrate to arrest them. ”

“ The incentives to emigration to Arizona, in addition to the charm which the discovery of mineral wealth carries to every mind, are very great. The writer, in an extended tour through the Southern States, found many people, mostly young men of moderate means, ready and anxious to emigrate. The movement is still stronger in Southwestern States, and already many a train of wagons is on its way. ”

“ But I have the photograph, and I sometimes wonder what has happened to black curly. Arizona is still a Territory; and when I think of the Gila Valley and of the Boy Orator, I recall Bishop Meakum’s remark about our statesmen at Washington: “You can divide them birds in two lots—those who know better, and those who don’t. ”

“ In December an itinerant government sent out complete from Washington crossed the Arizona line and effected a formal organization. The territorial capital was first at Prescott (1863-1867) , then at Tucson (1867-1877) , again at Prescott (1877-1889) , and finally at Phoenix (since 1889) .
There have been boundary difficulties with every contiguous state or territory. The early period of American rule was extremely unsettled. The California gold discoveries and overland travel directed many prospecting adventurers to Arizona. ”

“ In our settlements in Arizona, and New Mexico, we found the same feelings predominating that we find here in Salt Lake and in the settlements in this Territory. We find the good are growing better, their faith is increasing, they are laboring more assiduously to promote the interests of Zion; while those that are weak are growing weaker, those that are bad are growing worse ”

“ The power of the board depends, of course, upon statute, and it is said that the statute of Arizona was taken almost verbatim from one of Colorado, which had been construed by the supreme court of that state in accordance with the first of the petitioner's above contentions before it was adopted by Arizona. People ex rel. ”

“ I herewith return, without approval, House bill No. 4001, entitled "An act authorizing the rights of settlers on the Navajo Indian Reservation, Territory of Arizona." My objections to the bill are embodied in the following statement:
This tribe has a population of about 20,500 souls, of whom 1,000 dress in the manner of white men, 250 can read, and 500 use enough English for ordinary conversation. Last year they cultivated 8,000 acres, and possessed approximately 1,000,000 sheep, 250,000 goats, 100,500 cattle, 1,200 swine, and very considerable herds of horses and ponies. ”

“ It has a fascination that every one feels who crosses its border. Paradoxical as it may seem it is both the oldest and newest portion of our country--the oldest in ancient occupation and civilization and the newest in modern progress. In natural wonders it boasts of the Grand Canon of Arizona, the painted desert, petrified forest, meteorite mountain, natural bridge, Montezuma's well and many other marvels of nature. There are also ruins galore, the cave and cliff dwellings, crumbled pueblos, extensive acequias, painted rocks, the casa grande and old Spanish missions. ”

“ That beauty, from the Grand Canyon in the north to the Saguaro National Monument in the south, will forever epitomize the scenic majesty of the American West. Because the pioneer spirit of the people of Arizona continues to epitomize the American spirit, it is most fitting that every American celebrate the 75th anniversary of Arizona statehood. ”

“ Arizona is settled chiefly by people from the great South and from New England, the Middle West being hardly represented; its citizens are of the best quality of our national life, and to unite them with those of New Mexico—a large proportion of whom can hardly speak or understand the English language even, to say nothing of their divergence in race, requirements, and habits from the population of Arizona—would be imposing upon them a century's delay in realizing the grand ideals of education, moral progress, and economic development now prevailing in Arizona. ”

“ A green New England farm with running brooks and [Pg 68] blossoming orchards would have spelled Paradise to them, as this Persian pattern of desert did to us; beauty to the parched native of Arizona is an irrigation ditch, bordered by emerald cottonwoods.
If I tint these pages with too many sunsets, it is not from unawareness of my weakness, but because without them a description of Arizona does not describe. In the afternoon hours, between four and eight, the country wakes and glows, and has its moment, like a woman whose youth was plain but whom middle age has touched with charm and mystery. ”

“ But in the three-quarters of a century since then, the people of Arizona have shown again and again that they have never lost the tenacity and pioneer spirit that gained them statehood. Our Nation is much the better thereby.
Arizona has always presented challenges and frontiers to those who would settle there-Indians, missionaries, colonists, and pioneers alike. Today's Arizonans pioneer in high technology, medical research, space programs, astronomy, and many more fields of endeavor, and Americans continue to find opportunity in this beautiful State. ”

“ American traders and explorers first penetrated Arizona in the first quarter of the 19th century. As a result of the Mexican War, New Mexico, which then included all Arizona north of the Gila, was ceded to the United States. California gold discoveries drew particular attention to the country south of the Gila, which was wanted also for a transcontinental railway route. ”